Dr. Jacques H. Smits, the specialist Criminologist and `child tracker' now in Guyana with the mother of the two abducted children, Ms. Aneta Joanna Szadkowska, 30, said they yesterday continued the search in New Amsterdam, Berbice.

Smits said the alleged kidnapper Herman Roelf Ploeger, 34, a Dutch national, was Saturday seen boarding a bus in New Amsterdam for Georgetown.

The man and the two boys were also seen Monday on a bus from Georgetown to Linden, Smits said.

He is asking anyone who sees the man to contact him today at his hotel in Georgetown on telephone number 2264374.

Ploeger is said to sometimes be disguised as a woman as he moves around with the two boys, investigators said.

Smits said he and the boys' mother have also been to Corriverton to try to track down the alleged kidnapper.

Smits, who is being helped in the search by detectives from the Criminal Investigations Department here, told the Chronicle that Immigration authorities at the Cheddi Jagan International Airport and on the borders have been alerted about the abduction of the children and are on the lookout for Ploeger who allegedly fled the Netherlands a year ago with his two children even though he lost parental custody on four separate occasions during a bitter divorce in his country's court system, Smits told the Chronicle.

Smits said the kidnapper is believed to be posing as a woman to avoid detection.

The criminologist said several people yesterday said they had seen Ploeger and the boys but they had not reported this to the Police.

He said he has been assured that Police are on the lookout for the alleged abductor and the two boys at the airport and on the borders with Suriname, Brazil and Venezuela.

The abduction case has attracted the attention of the mainstream media in the Netherlands and law enforcement agencies in several countries, he said.

Smits, who has been on the case for some nine months now, said he has conducted investigations and searches in countries such as Spain, Belgium, Germany and Italy for Ploeger who is wanted by the Dutch Police, by the Venezuelan law enforcement agency and by Interpol (the international Police organisation) worldwide for "international child abduction".

The kidnapped children are Timotheus Witold Ploeger who was born at Enschende, Netherlands on December 27, 1997 and Pascal Roelf Ploeger, born at Assen, Netherlands on June 16, 1999. Their parents, Szadkowska (a Polish national) and Ploeger were married on October 3, 1997 in the Netherlands where they settled and lived together for about three years, Smits said.

They officially divorced on September 12, 2000 with the court awarding Szadkowska custody of the two children on four separate occasions, the last time by the Supreme Court in Holland, he said.

Szadkowska told the Chronicle that her ex-husband lost custody of the kids all four times.

The last time Szadkowska saw her two children was on June 24, 2001 when Ploeger kidnapped and disappeared with the kids.

Smits said he eventually tracked the wanted man to Margarita, a tourist island off the Venezuela coast in September last year. Ploeger, however, managed to escape with the kids after he allegedly "paid off" some people there.

Smits said that while in Margarita Island, Ploeger reportedly told the children - and others he met on the island - that their mother (Szadkowska) died of cancer last year.

"This is not true. The mother is in perfect health and wants her children back more than anything," Smits told the Chronicle in the presence of Szadkowska, who is not as fluent in English as she is in Dutch and Polish.

Ploeger was born in Winschoten, Netherlands on August 6, 1968. His passport number is N88022744 and his Social Security Number is 110933084, Smits said.

He, however, noted that Ploeger may be using "forged and falsified documents" for travelling.

According to Smits, intelligence reports gathered so far indicate that Ploeger fled Margarita Island and went to Caracas, Venezuela where he stayed a while.

He subsequently took a flight from Caracas and arrived in Guyana on November 28 last year with the two children.